implacable in his hatreds, had organized a
Board of Assassination, which he called "The Bureau of Military
Justice." This remarkable Bureau had already murdered Mrs. Surratt on
perjured testimony.

Socola had given his ex-Chief no intimation of his personal feelings and
no hint of his association with O'Connor.

"I've a little favor to ask of you, young man," Holt said suavely.

Socola bowed.

"At your service, Chief--"

"I need a man of intelligence and skill to convey a proposition to Wirz,
the keeper of Andersonville prison. He has been sentenced to death by
the Bureau of Military Justice. I'm going to offer him his life on one
condition--"

"And that is?"

"If he will confess under oath that Davis ordered the starving and
torturing of prisoners at Andersonville I'll commute his sentence--"

"I see--"

"I'll give you an order to interview Wirz. He has never seen you. Report
to me his answer."

When Socola explained to Wirz in sympathetic tones the offer of the
Government to spare his life for the implication of Davis in direct
orders from Richmond commanding cruelties at Andersonville, the
condemned man lifted his wounded body and stared at his visitor.

His answer closed the interview.

"Tell the scoundrel who sent you that I am a soldier. I was a soldier in
Germany before I cast my fortunes with the South. I bear in my body the
wounds of honorable warfare. If I hadn't time to learn the meaning of
honor from my friends in the South, my mother taught me in the old
world. You ask me to save my life from these assassins by swearing away
the life of another. Tell my executioner that I never saw the President
of the Confederacy. I never received an order of any kind from him. I
did the best I could for the men in my charge at Andersonville and tried
honestly to improve their conditions. I am not a perjurer, even to save
my own life. A soldier's business is to die. I am ready."

Socola extended his hand through the bars and grasped the prisoner's.

The deeper he dived into the seething mass of corruption and blind
passion which had engulfed Washington the more desperate he saw the
situation of Davis at Fortress Monroe. After two weeks of careful work
he hurried to New York and reported the situation to O'Connor.

"The master mind," he began slowly, "I found at once. His name is
Holt--"

"The Judge Advocate General?"

"Yes."

"That accounts for my inability to obtain a copy of the charges against
D